Have yourself a bacon-wrapped Christmas

At this time of year, many of us engage in various time-honored traditions -- spending time with loved ones, choosing the perfect Christmas tree, putting up the perfect Christmas tree, decorating the perfect Christmas tree, cleaning up all the needles shed by the perfect Christmas tree, wishing the perfect Christmas tree would spontaneously combust, etc.


Yet our time-honored traditions are under attack by certain groups who are bent on eradicating all we hold dear. I refer specifically to the time-honored tradition of stuffing ourselves full of food that is not good for us.


This tradition probably dates back even before the original Christmas, and at some point the early Christians, as they eagerly spread the good news of Christ's birth, also spread the good news of bacon-wrapped water chestnuts. And ever since, we have been consuming, in a single month of the year, about 180 megacalories (1 megacalorie being equal to 27,000 regular calories) during the Christmas season. Per day.


But then slowly, insidiously, certain heretics -- calling themselves "nutritionists" -- began a crusade to ban anything with a positive calorie count from our holiday celebrations. Every year now, we are presented with long lists of foods to avoid at holiday parties (pretty much everything). We are told to never to go a party hungry. I'm sorry, is there any reason to even go to a party other than for the food?


Nothing kills the holiday spirit quicker than being told to eat healthy. So it is time to fight back (that is, if we can lift our spoons out of the cheese ball long enough to do so). In an effort to rid these heretical ideas from our holiday celebrations, I have compiled a list of suggestions for keeping the fun -- and calories -- in Christmas.


1. Never eat before going to a party, because you will not want to eat anything at the party, and this will offend the hostess, unless she is a nutritionist.


2. Take your favorite, most fattening dish to a party. That way you'll be sure to have something halfway decent to eat if everyone else brings something healthy.


3. Be sure to eat at the mall food court while doing your holiday shopping. You will rarely find anything healthy there, and if there is anything healthy the nutritionists will consume it all.


4. Avoid eating too many fruits and vegetables. In fact, consider placing a ban on them for the entire month of December. If you must eat them, be sure to use them only as a conveyance for tantalizing, calorie-laden dips.


5. One teeny, tiny concession I will make: Do practice portion control, taking less food than you otherwise might. Just make sure you keep going back for seconds, thirds, thirty-ninths, etc.


6. If you feel you must do something to counteract holiday overeating, plan a progressive meal with your neighbors. That way you can get a little exercise in while walking from one house to another, but there will still be plenty of food. If you're concerned about getting too much exercise, you can always make the trip next door in your car.


We may find that these measures are not enough, in which case we will have to make an all-out assault on calorie Scrooges. No violence, of course. Maybe just a little hacking into Santa's database and changing certain wish lists to include things like pecan pie with oodles of whipped cream on top...